Note That There Was No Claim For

What Is Quite Worrisome Is The Absence Of Analysis And Reflection. Take The Word "terrorism." It Has Become Synonymous Now With Anti-americanism, Which, In Turn, Has Become Synonymous With Being Critical Of The United States, Which, In Turn, Has Become Synonymous With Being Unpatriotic. That's An Unacceptable Series Of Equations.

All Knowledge That Is About Human Society, And Not About The Natural World, Is Historical Knowledge, And Therefore Rests Upon Judgment And Interpretation. This Is Not To Say That Facts Or Data Are Nonexistent, But That Facts Get Their Importance From What Is Made Of Them In Interpretation… For Interpretations Depend Very Much On Who The Interpreter Is, Who He Or She Is Addressing, What His Or Her Purpose Is, At What Historical Moment The Interpretation Takes Place.

... The Connection Between Imperial Politics And Culture Is Astonishingly Direct. American Attitudes To American "greatness", To Hierarchies Of Race, To The Perils Of "other" Revolutions (the American Revolution Being Considered Unique And Somehow Unrepeatable Anywhere Else In The World) Have Remained Constant, Have Dictated, Have Obscured, The Realities Of Empire, While Apologists For Overseas American Interests Have Insisted On American Innocence, Doing Good, Fighting For Freedom.

The Central Fact For Me Is, I Think, That The [role Of The] Intellectual... Cannot Be Played Without A Sense Of Being Someone Whose Place It Is Publicly To Raise Embarrassing Questions, To Confront Orthodoxy And Dogma (rather Than To Produce Them), To Be Someone Who Cannot Easily Be Co-opted By Governments Or Corporations, And Whose Raison D'etre Is To Represent All Those People And Issues That Are Routinely Forgotten Or Swept Under The Rug.

In Short, Israel Is The Measure Of Our Failings And Our Incompetence. We Have Waited For A Great Leader For Years, But None Came; We Have Waited For A Mighty Military Victory, But We Were Defeated Roundly; We Have Waited For Outside Powers (the United States Or, In Its Time, The Soviet Union), But None Came To Our Aid. The One Thing We Have Not Tried In All Seriousness Has Been To Rely On Ourselves: Until We Do That With A Full Commitment To Success There Is No Chance That We Can Advance Towards Self-determination And Freedom From Aggression.